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For Dorothy, there may be no place like home, but in the animated series that brought her back from obscurity, it was back to Oz to learn some more important lessons about humanity.

Wizard of Oz was a half-hour animated series produced in 1990 that brought back the spunky farm girl from Kansas and her little dog, Toto, from the L. Frank Baum book and 1939 MGM movie classic of the same name. The episodes expanded upon the plot of the original story, in which Dorothy tried to prevent the Wicked Witch of the West from taking over Oz. The lesson to be learned from Dorothy’s new adventures was “believe in yourself.”

Assisting Dorothy in her struggles were animated versions of the Cowardly Lion, the resourceful Scarecrow, and the gentle-hearted Tin Man. With the exception of Dorothy, all of the characters, including the Wizard, were drawn to look like their movie counterparts. Dorothy was designed to look more like Ariel from Disney’s The Little Mermaid.

Whether live-action or animation, the 1930’s or the 1990’s, any version of the imaginative Wizard of Oz was worth seeing again and again, but unfortunately, this Wizard of Oz had to face the imposing challenge of the Muppet Babies on CBS. Faced with stiff competition, the show ran only 26 episodes, but these were later syndicated as part of the cartoon lineup on Amazin’ Adventures.